Tofino in July 2011

I'm taking ages to catch up with my blog.  It's a problem.  However, I have decided to try and get back to regular posting.  I just hope I can stick to my decisions!

We went to Tofino last July for a beautiful 10 days with my Mum.  Just us girls.  The weather could not have been more amazing.  We really lucked out.  The girls had so much fun running in the waves, picking shells, digging sand and getting soaking wet in the Ocean.  I sat for hours on the beach watching them play in the salt water.

Marin is growing up so fast.  On our first walk along the beach, she started acting super silly, throwing sand over her shoulders!  She just looked so darn cute doing it!

What a girl....

Granny and Calli found a lovely long bull kelp and tried rescuing it by putting it back in the Ocean.  Granny does a great job reminding the girls to collect garbage off the beach and bring it to an actual garbage can.  For the amount of use Cox Bay gets, it's amazing there isn't more garbage!  People are very respectful when they vacation here.

The girls spent countless hours building sand castles and running back and forth into and out of the water.  Brought back my memories of all the time my brother and I spent in England doing the same thing!

As usual, we tested out most of the restaurants in Tofino.  Marin finished all her supper and chose vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce for her dessert!  She was enthralled with the real flower they decorated with!

When the tide goes WAY out, we are able to walk all along the rocks and explore the tide pools and hike out to Sunset Point and down to Rosie Bay beyond.  The girls have figured out how much fun it is to poke sea anemones and watch them retreat into themselves!

That's a deep one!  Depending on the day, the tide pools can be shallow or deep!

I love the contrasting colours out on the West Coast.  The sky, so blue and the trees, so green!

Peek-a-boo view of the Ocean.

We made it up to Sunset Point.  We call this Gido's bench...after my father.  Nine years ago, after he'd passed away, we spread some of his ashes up here.  We often come up to sit and watch the surfers and the waves and the sea life, living in front of our eyes.  Last summer, the girls found wild strawberries and had a great feast!  I think Granny was dividing up the strawberries between herself and Calli!

There they are!!  Jumping waves again!!  In swimsuits and sweaters!!  That's the Pacific Ocean for you!

Our resort had some neat kids programs every day that the girls love participating in.  One morning they went down to the beach with the program leader to build sand castles.  Two hours later after it was finished, they came running to the room to inform us that Calli knew one of the girls in the group from Montreal!!  At that moment, this girls Mom came around the corner and her daughter started telling her that she knew Calli!  We got it all sorted out and it's the craziest story.  

Maybe 5 years ago, we went camping at a site in Ontario, not far from where we'd lived in St-Lazare. (Here is a link to that post.  I didn't mention the name of the girl in that post.)  Calli ended up meeting Abby at the campsite and after talking, figured out they would be going to the same school, which they were thrilled about!  So when we arrived in Tofino and the girls headed out to make sand castles and end up seeing this familiar looking girl, we can hardly believe our eyes to see that it's Abby!!!  It even ended up that their room was directly above ours at the resort.  Calli and Abby spent as much time together over the next few days as possible.  We exchanged addresses, seeing as they are obviously meant to be friends for some reason, and they are now pen pals!  It's uncanny to have two chance meetings like this in their (then) 8 years on Earth!

Here are all three girls enjoying hot chocolate on the beach!  NOtice how Calli's hands and legs are completely covered in sand....

We spent a bit of time with Krista too!  We spent a great few hours on the beach together chatting and then we took her out for lunch for her birthday.  I love spending time with her.  She and her partner, Chad, keep bees, so we love going out to their house and seeing all the work they do with them!

Marin is a pretty picky eater still.  She went through the menu at Krista's birthday lunch and decided the only thing she would eat would be a Grilled cheese sandwich with fries.  After it came, she realized the bread had seeds in it, (which she just won't eat), so she modified the menu to show how she really felt about it all!!  Haha!  Poor little girl.

We had a fair amount of very windy days while we were out there!  We went over to Rosie Bay to have a peek over at Chesterman Beach and it didn't take much effort to return to Cox Bay with the wind at our backs!

We finally decided to take a float plane ride around the area last year!!  It was amazing!  Marin and I got to go together and Granny and Calli went up together.  Marin was pretty happy!  See??

Marin and I were on the plane with a family who was taking a trip out to some hot springs on another one of the smaller islands.  It was fun for us to land on the water in this little inlet and take off again after dropping them off!  Our 20 minute plane ride lasted about 45 minutes!  Awesome!

There is Calli, getting ready to go on her trip!!

The scenery out there is amazing.  I could have stayed up in that plane all day.

Marin and I when we got back.

The girls and I walked out to Frank Island on Chesterman Beach.  It was cool standing here on the rocks and thinking about Japan being on the other side of the Ocean!

On the way back, we found a really soft spot in the sand, so the girls leaped around like they were doing gymnastics and had a wonderful time!

Marin got some big air!

The big wind blew up some cool plant life!!  Calli took this all the way back to the other end of the beach to use for her sand castle.

On this day, the girls and I walked to the end of Cox Bay and back.  While walking, we noticed there were a fair amount of stranded jelly-fish, so they took it upon themselves to be the jelly-fish rescue squad.    There is Calli, bringing the jelly-fish back into the Ocean!

Cool seaweed!

My baby on the rocks at the other end of the beach.  It never fails that they have to go pee once we get all the way down there...and I've never packed any tissues!  I'll learn eventually!

Calli on the rocks.

Beautiful sunset after dinner one night.  Granny sure enjoys spending her time with the girls in Tofino.

On our last day, I took the girls out to Ucluelet to hike the Wild Pacific Trail with me.  They absolutely loved it!  It's a beautiful coastal trail that runs along the coast line.  We did the Lighthouse Loop.

On the way back to Comox, we stopped at Cathedral Grove to show the girls the incredible old cedars. It started raining when we were walking through the forest, but it enabled us to be the few brave people out exploring!  All of the other people either kept on driving or stayed in their cars!  A little bit of rain never hurt anyone!

Such big, beautiful trees.

Granny and her grand-daughters.

As usual, we had such a wonderful trip!  We are heading out again in less than two weeks, which just proves how much catching up I have to do on my blog!!  Thanks for the memories Granny!  Can't wait to make some more!  xoxo